Justin Rocket Silverman Enters the Cougars’ Den

By the end of the evening, the cougars were just quietly gnawing at Silverman’s slippery bones.Photo-illustration: Getty Images, Patrick McMullan

When the New York Post was deciding who to send to the open casting call for Cougars: NYC at Libation (where else?), they had a number of choices. They could have sent any one of their own cougars: Andrea Peyser, Cindy Adams, the sexier and feistier Maggie Haberman or Paula Froelich … or they could have thrown in the man-cougar himself, Richard Johnson. (Does that make him a “mougar”?) Instead, they chose to go with their version of man-bait, the young and handsome Justin Rocket Silverman. It was, quite literally, like tossing a hunk of fresh meat into a room full of, well, you get it. Silverman wrote about the event with an all-too-knowingtone:

Some of the cubs were, well, awkward — the type of young men who might not have an easy time seducing women their own age. But in Cougar Land, they were veritable Don Juans. “It’s a lot more fulfilling to be with a woman of some experience,” says 25-year-old Jon Caballero as he shakes his moneymaker to the delight of the cougars around him. “A younger girl expects the guy to do all the work. But an older woman is not afraid to take the reins inbed.”

A cub, by the way, is the kind of man that a cougar preys upon. The gays have a version of the term “cub,” which is a little more parallel — they are boys who like to date “bears.” It seems like cougars should be going after kittens, or something. Male kittens.Mittens?